Illinois Institute of Technology, private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Chicago, Illinois, U.S. It dates to 1890, when the Armour Institute of Technology was founded (its first classes were held in 1893). The institute owes its heritage to a sermon by Chicago minister Frank Gunsaulus (the school’s first president), who pledged to build an institution open to all (at a time when university education was the preserve of the very few), and to Philip Danforth Armour, a Chicago meat packer and merchant who provided financial backing. In 1940 the Armour Institute merged with the Lewis Institute (founded 1896) to form the Illinois Institute of Technology. The Institute of Design was founded as the New Bauhaus in 1937 by Hungarian painter and photographer László Moholy-Nagy; it joined the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1949. Chicago-Kent College of Law joined the institute in 1969. VanderCook College of Music, a separate institution, is located on the main campus. Total enrollment is approximately 7,700.

In addition to the above, the institute includes the Armour College of Engineering, the College of Science and Letters, the Institute of Psychology, the Stuart Graduate School of Business, the Graduate College, the College of Architecture, and the Center for Law and Financial Markets. IIT offers both undergraduate and graduate studies, awarding doctoral degrees in architecture sciences, engineering, computer science, design, business, psychology, and law.

The main campus is located on the south side of Chicago; there are also two campuses in downtown Chicago and suburban campuses in Wheaton and Bedford Park. Research facilities associated with the institute include the National Center for Food Safety and Technology, the Fluid Dynamics Research Center, the Center for Electrochemical Science and Engineering, and the IIT Research Institute.

Leading figures from the German Bauhaus school, notably Moholy-Nagy and German-born American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, were important to the institute’s development. Mies, longtime head of the institute’s architecture department, designed many of the buildings on the main campus. In 2003 the institute dedicated the McCormick Tribune Campus Center, a stunning metal and glass building designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas; the complex includes a 530-foot (161-metre) stainless steel tube above it through which trains pass.

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...formed a group, the Architects Collaborative, the members of which designed the thoroughly modern Harvard Graduate Center (1949–50). Mies became dean of the department of architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology at Chicago in 1938 and designed its new campus. Crown Hall (1952–56) marked the apogee of this quarter-century project.

...of Chicago (the second school of that name; the first, founded by Baptists in 1857, closed in 1886) and the Armour Institute of Technology (which merged with another institution in 1940 to form the Illinois Institute of Technology). Roosevelt University (1945), which occupies the historic Auditorium Building, and Columbia College (1890) are located downtown, as are branch campuses of...

...The Hungarian-born Bauhaus artist and educator László Moholy-Nagy established the trendsetting New Bauhaus in Chicago (1937) and subsequently developed the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology (1944). It and similar schools began to train the next generation of American industrial designers.

External Links

Official Site of the Illinois Institute of TechnologyOverview of this institute in Chicago, Illinois. Provides admissions information and directories of departments, faculty, and students. Also includes a course catalog, a school newspaper, an academic calendar, a searchable library catalog, and alumni news.

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The Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) is a private institution of higher education with a main campus on the south side of Chicago, Illinois. It also has two campuses in downtown Chicago and two in the suburbs. The Illinois Institute of Technology was established in 1940 through the merger of the Armour Institute of Technology (founded in 1890) and the Lewis Institute (1895). The Institute of Design was founded as the New Bauhaus in 1937 by Hungarian painter and photographer Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. It became part of IIT in 1949. Chicago-Kent College of Law joined the institute in 1969. The main campus features many buildings designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who was long the director of the Institute’s architecture school. The McCormick Tribune Campus Center was designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. It includes a stainless steel tube through which elevated trains pass.